THE ARMIES OF INDIA.• THE evolution of the Indian Army
from the "Ensign and thirty men" stationed in Bengal towards the end of the seventeenth century to the great modern Line—perhaps the most wonderful military organism the world has ever seen —makes a story of such absorbing interest that there is little excuse for the average Englishman's almost complete ignor- ance of it. Practically never at rest since the first raising of the three Presidential armies till their abolition in 1895 and. the final reconstruction by Lord Kitchener—even during the. Mutiny itself the usual frontier operations were taking place• —it has given history many of its most magic names, no less for such brilliant feats of sustained endurance as Lake's pursuit of Holkar in the First Mahratta, War, covering 350 miles in fourteen days, Lord Roberta's march to Kandahar, or Kelly's from Gilgit in the Chitral Relief Ex- pedition, than for dash and gallantry in action itself. Save for the one dark interlude in 1857, the hazardous experiment of entrusting chiefly to native troops the maintenance of our prestige in Hindustan has so gloriously justified itself that its success is too often taken for granted—an injustice not only to the officers who have given their lives to the perfecting of this mighty engine, but also to the men who have proved themselves worthy of their unstinted devotion and trust.
How few of the general public realize, for instance, the special conditions of service in the Indian Army and the delicate problems of adjustment, demanding boundless tact and experience, to which they give rise. Yet three features radically distinguish the organization of the Indian from that of the British Army—the Silladar system, by which, in return for a certain allowance per head, the regiment (that is, ulti- mately, the individual soldier) and not Government, finds all equipment except firearms, an arrangement obviously requir- ing and appealing to a much higher recruiting stratum than that, unfortunately, available at home; the policy of concen- trating the different races and sects in separate " class " companies and squadrons, by which tribal discipline and rivalry are fostered within each regiment; and, lastly, the relatively limited and annually smaller recruiting area, due to the fact that, owing to centuries of oppression and the rapid deterioration of Asiatics in time of peace, only certain races in India are capable of bearing arms, which makes it necessary to teat with the utmost care the statements of intending recruits as to their origin, since in India service in the ranks is happily still a source of distinc- tion, and consequently attracts pretenders as well as the true-born.
The record in words and colour by Major MacM unn, D.S.O., and Major Lovett strips indifference of its last pretext. Major Lovett's illustrations, admirable not only for the detail of uniforms and accoutrement, but still more for their life and variety, their sense of character, differentiation of types, and skill in rendering likenesses, form an incomparable pageant of sun-drenched colour, ranging from the scarlet of the
• The Armies of India. Painted by Major A. C. Lorott ; Text by Major Cl. V. ItacMunn, D.S.O. London : A. and C. Black. L208. sat.]
Governor-General's Bodyguard to the delicate blue of the 27th Light Cavalry and the white splendour of the famous Jodhpur Sardar Risela. Nor is the text merely (as might appear from • the sub-title) a setting for these. Major MacMunn—the Lieutenant MacMunn of the late Mr. A. IL Beesly's fine ballad on the relief of Sadon in 1892— has handled his fascinating subject with soldierly simplicity, ease, and clearness of arrangement. His accounts of the two great Mahratta wars, which, in spite of their effect on the formation of modern India, are comparatively little known, and of the Imperial Service troops maintained by the Native States are chapters of special interest in a volume uniformly excellent save for a frontispiece whose appropriate loyalty is only equalled by its insignificance.
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